Charting a New Course

In The Press

White Room has been quoted in BRW 9th October 2008 in Emerging Companies - "Charting a New Course". A turnaround story by Tony Blackie on our client Havenhall, a product and distribution company. Read at www.whiteroomgroup.com.au/docs/WhiteRoomBRW.pdf


Tony Blackie knows small business, the joys and the heartache. Our thanks to him for his support of small business and informing them of the help available to ease the journey, which White Room and many other dedicated small business consulting companies offer.

Also see Tony's column "Blackie" next to this article for his view on the Liberal Party's sudden about face on small business. Good news for us, shame it seems more like a political manoeuver than a genuine concern for small business and an understanding of the cornerstone role they play in an economy. Not sure how come it has taken them and other successive governments a couple of millenium to figure this out. We know that entrepreneurs have always been the soul of business.

Get the support you need. Book an initial meeting to see if we can help. It's on us. Visit http://www.whiteroomgroup.com.au/

Dreaming of a business that runs without you?

The dream of many of our Small Business Owner (SBO) clients is to have their business operate without being dependent on them day to day. The achievement of that from wherever you are today is an evolutionary process and will need a structured path and certain mindset to achieve it.

To have independence from your business would require you to replace yourself in the business. The first step to that is a mindset shift to separate your ownership of the business from your role in the business. This separation of ownership and role is a common concept in medium to large businesses and we can leverage off their view of business to help take us forward.

They achieve this by conceptualizing the business using an organisational framework or model to represent their business and all the functions and tasks that are necessary to have it run and perform. They then allocate their current resources to these functions and tasks and use this framework to plan for growth. What you currently do (functions and tasks) as a business owner, will depend on where you are in your phase of development and how many staff you employ. However, unless you have already achieved independence from your business and are a passive shareholder, you probably still hold the top job, called most often in medium to large businesses, the CEO (Chief Executive Officer).

Now don’t flip out about the title. You don’t need to use it commercially in the marketplace. It is simply a way to identify a function that exists in a business that most SBOs are actually referring to when they say they are a business owner. Personally, I have never seen an organisational chart for a business that names a role called Business Owner. You can be a business owner and play no role in a business at all; you would simply be a shareholder. In the organisational framework, we use with our clients the shareholder issues are handled in the Function called "Board"

So what is the role of a CEO? We liken building a business to building a house and the CEO role to that of an architect. We need an architect (CEO) to co-ordinate the overall plan and functioning of the business in the following areas:

• Scope out the site (Market and Product Management)
• Design the building (Organisational Management)
• Oversee the project (Operations and Administration Management)
• Recruit the builders and other suppliers (Staff and Supplier Management)
• Bring the project in on budget (Financial Management)
• Keep the owners informed and happy (Shareholder Management)
• And along the way, make sure that everyone works together and stays aligned to the vision (Cultural Management).

Sound like an onerous amount of time and responsibility? It’s not. How much time you spend on this function will be appropriate to the size of your business, its phase, and your ambitions. You might notice that you already have responsibility for these functions and tasks but had just not defined them. In addition, you may not have equipped yourself with the skills and tools to do them all or be spending time to do all of them.

Now how does a CEO do all that, retain his sanity and get the project to completion?

Just like an architect he must first have a plan, but more importantly be working with a broader structure of how the project evolves, and what is required at each phase of the project. If you do not have, a framework for the development of your business as part of your tool kit as a CEO, it is going to be a rough ride, probably costly, and you are going to get stuck at some point.

Secondly, he does not try and do it all himself. You are unlikely to have the necessary skill at every phase of business to take it to the next level. The right resource with the right skill doing the right job at the right time is part of the planning of both the CEO and the Architect.

One of our clients, a financial planner, who made this recognition some seven years ago and recruited us to help take his business forward, has been living the dream of most SBO’s for several years. He is able to take extended time away from his business and work in the roles that he prefers. At the source of his success is this fundamental shift in mindset to think more commercially about his business.

This commercial mindset is about making the time to work on the business, have a structured way to think about and plan the business using business frameworks and getting the right support to make it happen. This shift has also benefited his staff who are happier, staying longer and earning more. It has also allowed him to build a bigger business than was possible with the previous unstructured approach. For him it has, as he puts it, “kept the flame alive” a lot longer.

You won’t want to stay in business long if you do not get the commercial result of profit or if it becomes too stressful to manage. A way to a commercial return and a more enjoyable and fulfilling business journey is to start adopting some of the thinking of bigger businesses. The fundamental difference between them and small business is that their primary mindset is “I am a Business Builder” and they focus on maximum commercial return.

A quick snapshot of the differences in mindset of Medium Business Owner vs Small Business Owner

• Acquire business knowledge proactively vs Trial and error approach to learning business skills
• Hire in Expertise vs Try and do it themselves
• Build Systems vs Recreate each time they need to do something
• Have established advisors from whom they seek advice vs Only seek advice when there is a problem
• Have a business plan and use business frameworks vs Reactive response to business issues
• Look to maximize commercial return vs Focus on creating sufficient income
• Business Builder mindset – “I run a Business” vs Product/Service provider mindset – “I am a Financial Planner, Accountant...”
• Run the business commercially based on numbers, thinking and values alignment vs Feelings based approach to decision making

This mindset shift alleviates most of the issues we see faced by our small business clients, without losing their passion or humanity. And the sooner in their business development they start thinking like this, the more leverage they get in their business to achieve their goals.

Evolve faster, enjoy your business more, and live the dream. Book an initial meting. It’s on us.

White Room are Business Planning and Management consultants for small businesses up to 50 staff. Based in Sydney and servicing Melbourne, Newcastle, Brisbane and Adelaide.Get the support you need commercially and personally to run and grow your business with clarity and confidence.
Call 0413 670 417
Email support@whiteroomgroup.com.au
Visit http://www.whiteroomgroup.com.au/